InterdepenDance Civic Jams are a new kind of civic gathering, weaving together good food, music, arts, and real conversation about the city and country we want to build, with neighbors, artists, students, and local organizers. We'll also invite candidates and elected officials to join the conversations, to listen, and to share, but not to just give stump talks.

This isn't a conference, it's an unconference. We'll have some lightning talks, but mostly we'll co-create the agenda with the attendees. The three main goals of of the event are:

Community Connection: Let's meet, connect, and get to know each other!
Sensemaking: Various things are fuzzy (AI, democracy, elections, the world, life...). Let's work through the muddle, together.
Bias towards action: This is a time for clear, strategic, and effective action. Let's do this.

And there are some simple framing questions:

What do you love about LA and want more of?
What most needs to change?
What can we do to make those changes happen?
And the same questions for the country.

And the brainstorming starts now! Share your opinion now on Heard.vote!

We want to hear what's most important to you and others in our community, and see how we can build towards consensus of shared priorities to then see how we can make them happen ... together. Heard.vote is a simple way for people to vote on issues, and add there own, so please hop on over and share your thoughts:

"Hey LA, what's most important to you in LA and the civic/democracy space right now?"!

At the event on Aug 9, we'll share the results, break into small groups to discuss in a deeper way, and help you find the issue and the people you might want to collaborate with to take action ... whether through an existing initiative or organization, or bringing people together to start a new one.

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Are you affiliated with any political party?

No, this is a truly non-partisan/bi-partisan/trans-partisan event, and if we're aligned with anything, we're aligned with what we call the "big missing middle" of people who don't feel that any party is adequately looking out for the interests of the majority of the people, and that actually, when "we the people" get together, we realize we're not nearly as polarized as the media/social media/politicians and political parties show ... since they actually profit (financially) from making people feel polarized, but we the people don't.

So let's come together as people left, right and center ... and come up with a plan of action for co-creating the city, state and country that we actually want to live in, and that we know is possible.

Does it end on Aug 9? What happens after?

Building the communities, cities, and country we want to live in won't be done in a day, but this is a start, it's a long-term effort, and we think every step of it should be filled with joy, connection, community, and impact. We have three suggested next steps, and we're open for more:

Helping people connect into existing or new initiatives or "working groups" to continue work on specific issues.
Making this gathering a regular convening (monthly? quarterly? semi-annual? a mix of in-person and online?), with specific actions and goals to accomplish between each one.
We're launching a "civics & democracy accelerator", and want to find great initiatives to invite to that! Initiatives could be for-profit/non-profit/civic (unregistered), and high-tech/low-tech/no-tech. Our initial near-term focus will be mostly on things related to having positive civic/citizen outcomes in the November election, and beyond that will be broader to build deeper momentum for civic engagement and democracy.

We'd love your thoughts on those, and we're open to other ideas as well.

This is a co-created event! Collaborators and volunteers, please join!

Can you help with food, music (DJ or live), sponsors, art supplies/activities, kid-care (so parents can join more easily), or games? Anyone want to facilitate a short pre/mid/post ecstatic dance session? Have other ideas that would make this an amazing event?

Please register with a "save the date" ticket and fill out the form ... more details coming soon.

And join the next planning call on July 28, 3pm!

How much will it cost to join the Civic Jam?

This is a sliding scale event from $0 to $30 to keep this accessible to everyone, and any additional donations will help us do more of these, more regularly. All ticket contributions and donations will be 501c3 tax deductible through our 501c3 fiscal sponsor, the California Doughtnut Economics Coalition (CalDEC.org).

Bring a friend, bring an open mind, and come join us and find your team, on August 9!

InterdepenDance Civic Jam LA Aug 9!